OTTAWA — The Harper government included communications strategists in closed-door discussions that led to an estimated $60 million in cuts at Environment Canada in the 2012 federal budget, according to internal briefing documents obtained by Postmedia News.

The records — labelled as “secret advice to the minister” — were part of more than 500 pages of briefing material prepared for the department’s deputy minister, Bob Hamilton, when he replaced Paul Boothe as Environment Canada’s boss in the summer of 2012.

“Strategists from the communication branch were involved in Environment Canada’s deliberations on its contribution to the deficit action reduction plan from the beginning,” said the records, released through access to information legislation.

“This allowed an analysis of communication issues, stakeholder reactions and public perception to be weighed during the consideration of each and every proposal and had the added advantage of having communications staff familiar with the proposals, and ready to hit the ground running once the decisions were announced.”

The internal document also said that the department’s human resources branch was “liaising” with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office as well as the central department in government, the Privy Council Office (PCO) on implementation plans “via communications.”

The briefing notes said the department created a series of management committees to plan the cuts, but they do not elaborate on what sort of consultations might have taken place with Environment Minister Peter Kent or deliberations with government scientists, who worked in the field, on spending reductions in areas such as federal response capacity to environmental disasters or quality control in enforcing industrial air pollution regulations.

“That sounds a bit backwards to me,” said Gary Corbett, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, which represents about 60,000 government scientists and professionals. “It’s wrong for communications people to be involved in deciding what decisions to make. Communications people are there to communicate the decisions after they’re made. It seems the government is just being political rather than (doing) what’s in the best interests of Canadians.”

Kent’s office told Postmedia News in a statement that he and his staff “led in arriving at the final decisions regarding the measures across the department and were therefore, obviously regularly informed and briefed accordingly.”

Overall, the document said that the government-wide deficit reduction plan from 2012 anticipated overall savings of $5.2 billion or 6.9 per cent of $75 billion in direct federal spending reviewed over the previous year.

Environment Canada was not immediately able to answer questions from Postmedia News about the precise role of its public relations strategists in its own deficit reduction efforts.

A chart included in the briefing notes estimated that Environment Canada’s 2015-16 budget would be $949 million, down from a peak of $1.3 billion in 2007-08.

The document also said that the PCO approved the “roll-out” days for announcements about specific cuts to environment spending, corresponding to various spikes involving dozens of calls from journalists in a span of three months that resulted in hundreds of media reports.

Hamilton was also told that the process was “challenging” and “difficult” with impacts on internal morale as well as damage to the department’s reputation as it let go about three per cent of its workforce.

“Media and public alike have been highly critical of the government of Canada, expressing concern over its cuts to science-based activities,” said a separate communications strategy prepared for the deputy minister. “Some key communications challenges include: Reassuring Canadians that their health and safety have not been put at risk as a result of recent cuts and that the government of Canada takes the environment portfolio seriously,”

The internal records also said that communications strategists also tried to help the department explain cuts to the affected scientists and staff, and that preliminary estimates pegged the transition costs related to layoffs to be between $10 to $15 million.

“While, the communications branch prepared, produced and supported much of the internal communications, such as all staff messages, the greatest success in its delivery was the meaningful engagement by senior management,” said the briefing notes.

“The face-to-face, open and transparent discussion with staff at branch meetings and in town hall meetings did much to alleviate tensions and increase an understanding, if not always an acceptance of the (deficit reduction) projects.”